Efforts to build bus ridership will continue in 2016. Initiatives include new the opening of the region’s first arterial Bus Rapid Transit Line, the A Line, new bus stop signs with more information, more waiting shelters and a new mobile app.

I've seen these along white bear avenue, and they're nice. Especially compared to the "this is a bus stop" signs that preceded them.

I just happened to drive most of the A Line route today while running some errands in St. Paul and Roseville. Saw all those bus shelters and was curious as to what they were. Sounds like an awesome service.

The Drive wrote: Metro Transit is developing an app to enhance trip planning capabilities and getting real-time departure information for those on mobile devices.

Since Metro Transit already has a mobile website that works well, what does an app gain them besides doubling or tripling their mobile technology maintenance workload? If it was going to allow NFC payments, that would be one thing, but as I understand it, the Go-To readers use a nonstandard NFC implementation that won't allow for that.

The Drive wrote: Metro Transit is developing an app to enhance trip planning capabilities and getting real-time departure information for those on mobile devices.

Since Metro Transit already has a mobile website that works well, what does an app gain them besides doubling or tripling their mobile technology maintenance workload? If it was going to allow NFC payments, that would be one thing, but as I understand it, the Go-To readers use a nonstandard NFC implementation that won't allow for that.

It gains them the same thing that 90% of app providers gain from their app over a web site: the ability to say, "we have an app". I'm always surprised how eager people are to install an app, which takes up storage, memory, and CPU on your phone and can potentially expose all sorts of private information about you, for tasks that can be done within a browser. Thank Apple, whose "there's an app for that" ad series convinced people that having an app is somehow better. I'm sure Metro Transit is doing what some highly-paid consultants suggested, and to be fair, what much of their clientele demanded.

Sorry, that was ranty. It's a peeve of mine because the proliferation of apps has forced our phones to do ever more work to accomplish the same tasks they did seven years ago.

Probably a more useful answer is, it's meeting customers' demand for an app that provides the information already available on their mobile web page. it also peripherally makes it modestly easier to access people's exact location and potentially get better usage data over time to link rides (or interest in rides, which should correlate fairly tightly with actual rides since people don't tend to check on trip arrivals for buses they aren't taking). If they're collecting that data and properly taking advantage of it, it could be a bit richer than what they're getting from the browser interface.

talindsay wrote:[Sorry, that was ranty. It's a peeve of mine because the proliferation of apps has forced our phones to do ever more work to accomplish the same tasks they did seven years ago.

It depends. HTML/CSS is not a particularly efficient way to transmit information. With an app they could potentially reduce their server bandwidth requirements quite a bit.

Plus there's more interface flexibility with an app.

I much prefer one of the third-party apps over Metro Transit's mobile web interface because the apps present the information in more useful ways. I'm sure the same could be done via the web but for whatever reason, it hasn't been.

Reminders/Notifications
Per-route departure times for entire day
Access to all route maps in the system
A little bus icon on map indicating where the bus is

I had thought for the longest time that the bus icon was based on buses transmitting their GPS coordinates, but lately it's been nowhere close to accurate so I'm thinking maybe the bus icon is based on the published time schedule. Or, perhaps the published scheduled is used when GPS isn't available on the bus for whatever reason and I've been getting buses with issues. In any case, it's still a nice feature.

Reminders/Notifications
Per-route departure times for entire day
Access to all route maps in the system
A little bus icon on map indicating where the bus is

I had thought for the longest time that the bus icon was based on buses transmitting their GPS coordinates, but lately it's been nowhere close to accurate so I'm thinking maybe the bus icon is based on the published time schedule. Or, perhaps the published scheduled is used when GPS isn't available on the bus for whatever reason and I've been getting buses with issues. In any case, it's still a nice feature.

I use this one as well, for the same reasons.

The real-time icon looks sort of like a wifi connect icon. TBH, that hasn't been particularly accurate either (always at least a few minutes off either way, probably due to MT's update window) but it's better than nothing.

EDIT: I misunderstood which icon you were talking about. I have no idea what the map bus icon is based on. I don't use it that much.

jw138 wrote:...
I had thought for the longest time that the bus icon was based on buses transmitting their GPS coordinates, but lately it's been nowhere close to accurate so I'm thinking maybe the bus icon is based on the published time schedule. Or, perhaps the published scheduled is used when GPS isn't available on the bus for whatever reason and I've been getting buses with issues. In any case, it's still a nice feature.
...

...
I have no idea what the map bus icon is based on. I don't use it that much.
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This to me would be the best feature of any transit application. The closer to downtown you hop onto an inbound bus, the less accurate the published time schedule becomes. Accurate real-time bus GPS data would allow minimum time standing out in the cold.

I asked Transit's developers about the real-time bus icons once. Long story short, Metro Transit real-time departure doesn't update frequently and will often show buses that are "going to become" buses of a particular route as part of that route now.

jw138 wrote:...
I had thought for the longest time that the bus icon was based on buses transmitting their GPS coordinates, but lately it's been nowhere close to accurate so I'm thinking maybe the bus icon is based on the published time schedule. Or, perhaps the published scheduled is used when GPS isn't available on the bus for whatever reason and I've been getting buses with issues. In any case, it's still a nice feature.
...

...
I have no idea what the map bus icon is based on. I don't use it that much.
...

This to me would be the best feature of any transit application. The closer to downtown you hop onto an inbound bus, the less accurate the published time schedule becomes. Accurate real-time bus GPS data would allow minimum time standing out in the cold.

The real-time information is also listed on the "list of routes at this station" page. I just don't use the actual map much.